If you experience anxiety,stress, worries about your body, or just struggle to stay focussed during sex, its easy to feel locked inside your own head and unable to engage with the sensations or enjoyment of making love.

Dr Lori Brotto explains that while these thoughts and worries whirl around our brain and distract us, our mind pays less attention to our bodies and the sensations or triggers that are trying to elicit a sexual response. This impairs our ability to register the touch or feelings of being turned on- instead we’re disconnected from the sexual experience and it becomes harder to get turned on.

So, the solution to being stuck inside our minds is to get back in touch with our bodies again.

The aim is to connect with our bodies in a different way, for example, moving, dancing, exploring ourselves as sexual beings, rather than our bodies just being a vehicle to get us from A to B.

It’s also about becoming much more aware of touch and sensation, so that we’re more easily able to focus on and recognise feelings of arousal when we’re having sex.

Below are 11 tips to connecting to your body and reawakening it to the sensations of sexuality. Click on the links to find out more information….

#11 ways to awaken your body to desire:

Take part in particular exercises that works on opening up and moving your hips. This includes activities like belly dancing and yoga that encourage you to move sensually and gracefully. It’s AMAZING to help you develop a knowledge and appreciation of your body and how it moves, as well as increase your fitness levels. You might surprise yourself on how great you look- especially if you struggle with being confident about your body.

Practise mindfulness. Although mindfulness is traditionally about the mind, it can also be a really great way of focusing in on the body and on different sensations. It can help train your brain to stay more present, and to be less judgemental about if your thoughts do stray. You could try doing body scans, or, try this great video by Irene Fehr about how to be present. I also love this great resource from Cat Meyer on 6 ways to drop down into your body and our of your head free e-book.

Get in touch with your senses. Similar to mindfulness above, becoming aware of your senses is key to connecting to your sexuality. Sex is all about sensation! So practising during your day to day life on becoming more aware of touch, taste, smell, sound, can all help ramp up your ability to “feel” during sex later on.

Use your breath. This sounds a bizarre tip, but learning how to breathe deeply can really help with relaxing into sex in the moment, as well as encouraging you to become much more aware and connected to your body.

Start doing kegels. These exercises will not only help you with childbirth and later life, but the actual activity itself will help you focus your attention on your vulva and increase your connection and sensation. To find out more about using kegels to turn yourself on, click here.

Use Sensate touch therapy: this might be a tip you want to come back to after you’ve visited the section of the blog on relationships, depending on whether you’re currently having sex or not, but if you trust your partner and feel your relationship is in a good place, then this exercise is great. Its about your partner using sensitive touch to turn you on without the goal of becoming aroused. There are some great instructions here or here. Pleasurable touches mean you enjoy the journey rather than the destination 😉

Learn about the cycles of your body– things like periods can have a huge impact on your mood and desire

Learn about chakras. There are seven chakras or energy centres in the body, and the one associated with sexuality is the sacral chakra located just underneath the naval/in line with the ovaries. If you’re into energy and want to understand how to remove blockages, working with releasing this chakra can help.

Give yourself a breast massage- this is an ancient ayurvedic technique which many women swear by. It has lots of health benefits, however here the idea is more massage as an act of self-care, reconnecting with the body, worshipping the breasts and activating your sensuality. Layla Martin is a huge advocate of this and has a tutorial available here.

Look at and reconnect with your vagina- bringing in self-touching is a powerful act (see below), however even just looking at your vulva is SO important to help you explore your own sexuality and body. Find out why you should look at your vagina here.

The final tip to reconnect with your body is to start touching yourself. It’s a great way of getting to know what feels good, and how you like to be touched. Don’t worry if you have no desire to touch yourself- this is normal too. Only do what you feel comfortable with. If you’d be more comfortable with a partner (or it can be done along!) giving yourself a pussy massage is a brilliant way of being touched without pressure to get aroused or have sex.

Do you think these tips might work for you? Do you feel connected to your body? Comment below.